Locations

This building was a part of a former Navajo boarding school. Leupp Isolation Center opened on April 27th, 1943, after Moab Citizen Isolation Center became over-populated with “troublemaker” prisoners from various other American concentration camps. This was a high security prison where guards out-numbered the prisoners four to one. Historians call this site a precursor to the present day prison in Guantanamo, Cuba.

After refusing to sign the Loyalty Oath in 1943, many men from Block 42 of Tule Lake Incarceration Center were removed and isolated to Camp Tule Lake, about 16 miles northwest of the main Tule Lake Segregation Center. Jim and Mori Tanimoto tell the torturous story of their Camp Tule Lake experience in this film.

Moab Citizen Isolation Center was a former civil conservation camp in Utah. It opened after the notorious Manzanar “Riot” on December 10th, 1942 to isolate dissidents from the rest of the American concentration camp population. The security director of this institution, Francis Frederick imposed harsh restrictions on the inmates. Directors of the nine other concentration camps sent their “troublemakers” to this camp. As a result, Leupp Citizen Isolation Center opened to incarcerate the ever-increasing number of prisoners.